Asian Literature

Economy is a vital aspect in evaluating the progress of nations, and Korea is no exception to this standard. From the readings, it was possible to ascertain that Korea has experienced massive economic changes within the past two hundred years. We will examine the most important changes mentioned in these papers, and see how they fit into the social order at the time.

    We can start with Ko Dongwans evaluation of King Chongjos economic policies from 1776 to 1800. This paper focuses on the development of market trade, and stratifies this area into three spheres rural periodic markets, port markets, and city markets. Ko Dongwan asserts that rural markets experienced the most change during King Chonjos reign, transforming from scattered and isolated markets to highly-linked national markets. This paper goes on to discuss some other changes that mere made during this period, but that this shift in market economy was the key change in this era. These changes were good for the public, and allowed for more access to goods as well as uniform prices.

    Moving on to Kim Kuentaes paper, we begin examining the economy of Korea in the 19th century. This was a time of Rebellion for Korea, starting with the Peasants Rebellion of 1811. This happened because of corrupt officials who levied large taxes on the public, and unjustly acquired part of the money for themselves by doctoring census records which falsified population figures. By showing that only a few people lived in their area, they could secure more of the tax money for themselves as administrative costs. On top of this injustice, the land tax was made uniform throughout Korea, which allowed landowners to transfer the tax burden to the tenants this lead to much strife, because even in years with no harvest, the tenants were forced to pay taxes to the government.